1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a robbery prevention system, and more particularly to technology for registering ID information of a portable device carried by a user of a vehicle having a robbery prevention system. Robbery prevention system as used herein may also mean an anti-theft system.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, an immobilizer system which authenticates a key inserted into a key cylinder based on ID information electronically provided for the key, and a so-called smart key system which authenticates a portable device carried by a user of a vehicle based on ID information wirelessly received from the portable device have been used as systems for securely preventing robbery of vehicles.
According to this type of robbery prevention system, a lock controller for authenticating the portable device or key stores ID information of the portable device or key in advance. However, when the lock controller must be replaced for trouble or other reasons, the ID information must be registered again on a new lock controller. For registration of ID information, a specialized registration device is usually connected with the lock controller, and the ID information is inputted from the registration device to the lock controller. Thus, a user of the robbery prevention system must seek a specialist having a registration device in order to replace the lock controller, which is unsatisfactory from the viewpoint of convenience.
For overcoming this drawback, the robbery prevention system of JP-A-8-150898 stores ID information in an engine controller as well as a lock controller. According to this system, ID information is transmitted from the engine controller to the lock controller at the time of replacement of the lock controller to register the ID information on the lock controller. Thus, no special registration device is needed.
However, the robbery prevention system of JP-A-8-150898 does not fully overcome the problem of inconvenience. In JP-A-8-150898, ID information identical to ID information of a key is transmitted from the engine controller to a new lock controller and stored therein when the key is inserted into a key cylinder after replacement of the previous lock controller. Thus, the key needs to be inserted into the key cylinder for registration of the ID information, which is a rather complicated and troublesome operation.